Food Delivery App Riders Went on Strike in China Favorite
Food delivery riders are taking industrial action in China over low pay and the recent detention of an unofficial labor leader. The strike comes after Xiong Yan, who headed an unofficial union formed by workers for the food delivery app Ele.me and other services, was detained in Beijing last month. His whereabouts are still unknown.
A person familiar with the situation who gave only a surname, Zhang, said Ele.me riders are considering a nationwide strike on Monday to protest the platform's treatment of riders and Xiong's presumed detention. "A group of their riders has been talking about going on all-out strike on March 8, but this could just be something they are talking about in their group chat rather than a decision by the alliance as a whole," Zhang told RFA. "
Emotions are running high right now, but posts on Weibo don't stay up long: they generally get deleted soon after they are posted," he said. And Ele.me isn't alone in making stringent demands of takeaway riders, who are treated as "self-employed" and have no employment rights.
Another person close to the situation, Hong Tao, said more riders were taking part in the "sabotage" campaign on Wednesday, but that it was hard to estimate the scale of the action. According to a post on WeChat Moments by a Beijing-based delivery rider surnamed He, as many as 10,000 delivery riders in more than a dozen groups were involved in the campaign.